Priests, Women, and Families

by Jules Michelet

To wish and think as he does, both acting with him and suffering with him—this is marriage. The worst that may happen is not that she may suffer, but that she may languish and pine away, living apart, and like a widow. How can we wonder, then, if her affection for him be lessened? Ah! if, in the beginning, he made her his own, by making her share his ambition, troubles, and uneasiness:—if they had watched whole nights together, and been troubled with the same thoughts, he would have retained her affections. Attachment may be strengthened by grief itself; and mutual sufferings may maintain mutual love.

Frenchwomen are superior to those of England or Germany, and, indeed, to any other women, in being able not only to assist man, but to become his companion, his friend, his partner, his alter ego. None but the commercial classes, generally speaking, are wise enough to profit by this. See, in the shop-keeping quarters, in the dark storehouses of the Rue des Lombards, or the Rue de la Verrerie, the young wife, often born of rich parents, who, nevertheless, remains there, in that little glazed counting-house, keeping the books, registering whatever is brought in or taken out, and directing the clerks and porters. With such a partner the house will prosper. The household is improved by it. The husband and wife, separated by their occupations during the day, are the better pleased to unite together in common thought.

Without being able to participate so directly in the husband's activity, the wife might also, in other professions, be able to associate with him in his business, or, at least, in his ideas. What makes this difficult (I have not attempted to disguise it) is the spirit of specialty which goes on increasing in our different professions, as well as in our sciences, and driving us into minute details; whereas woman, being less persevering, and, moreover, less called upon to apply herself with precision, is confined to a knowledge of generalities. The man who will seriously initiate a woman into his own life, can do it safely and completely, if she love him, but he would require to possess both patience and kindness. They have come together, as it were, from the two opposite poles, and prepared by a totally different education. Since it is so, how can you expect that your young wife, intelligent as she is, should understand you at once? If she do not understand you, it is, too frequently, your own fault: this almost always proceeds from the abstract, dry, and scholastic forms which you have imbibed from your education. She, remaining in the sphere of common sense and sentiment, understands nothing of your formulas, and seldom, very seldom, indeed, do you know how to translate them into plain language. This requires address, will, and feeling. You would want, sir, let me tell you, both more sense and more love.

At the first word she does not understand, the husband loses his patience. "She is incapable, she is too frivolous." He leaves her, and all is over. But that day he loses much. If he had persevered, he would gradually have led her along with him; she would have lived his life, and their marriage would have been real. Ah! what a companion he has lost! how sure a confidant! and how zealous an ally! In this person, who, when left to herself, seems to him too trifling, he would have found, in moments of difficulty, a ray of inspiration, and often useful advice.

I am here entering upon a large subject, where I should wish to stop. But I cannot. One word more: the man of modern times, a victim of the division of work, and often condemned to a narrow speciality, in which he loses the sentiment of general life, and becomes a morbid sort of a being, would require to have with him a young and serene mind, more nicely balanced, and less given to specialty than his own, that might lead him from the confined notions of trade, and restore him to the charms of a well-regulated mind. In this age of eager opposition, when the day is taken up with active business, and we return home worn out with toil or disappointment, it is necessary to have a wife at the domestic fire-side to refresh the burning brain of the husband. This workman (what are we all but workmen, each in his own particular line?), this blacksmith, panting with thirst, after beating the iron, would receive from her the living fountain of the beautiful and good, of God and nature; he would drink for a moment of eternal streams. Then he would forget, take courage, and breathe freely again. Having been relieved by her, he would in his turn assist her with his powerful hand, lead her into his own world, his own life, his way of progress and new ideas—the way of the future!

Unfortunately this is not the way of the world. I have sought everywhere, but in vain, for this fine exchange of thought, which alone realizes marriage. They certainly try for a moment, in the beginning, to communicate together, but they are soon discouraged: the husband grows dumb, his heart, dried up with the arid influence of interest and business, can no longer find words. At first she is astonished and uneasy: she questions him. But questions annoy him; and she no longer dares to speak to him. Let him be easy; the time is coming when his wife, sitting thoughtful by the fire-side, absent in her turn, and framing her imaginary plans, will leave him in quiet possession of his taciturnity.

First of all, she has a son. It is to him, if he be left to her, that she will devote herself entirely. Should she go out, she gives him her hand, and soon her arm; he is now like a young brother, "a little husband." How tall he has grown already! how quickly time passes; and it is a pity he grows so; for now comes the separation, his Latin and his tears. Must he not become a learned man? Must he not enter, as soon as possible, into the world of violence and opposition, where he will acquire the bad passions which are cultivated so carefully in us, pride, ambition, hatred, and envy? The mother would like to wait longer: "What is the hurry? he is so young, and those schools are so strict! He will learn much better at home, if they will let him remain with her; she will engage masters and superintend his studies herself; she will discontinue going to balls."—"Impossible, madam, impossible! you would make a milksop of him." The fact is, the father, though he likes his son very much, finds, that in a well-regulated house this movement and constant noise and bustle are intolerable. He is unable to support anything of the sort: fatigued, disgusted, and ill-humoured, he wants silence and repose.

Wise husbands, who make so little of the resistance of a mother, do you not perceive that it is also by an instinct of virtue that this woman wishes to keep her son the pure and irreproachable witness, before whom she would always have remained holy? If you knew how useful the presence of the child is to the house, you yourself would desire to keep him. As long as that child remained there, the house was blessed. In his presence how difficult it is to loosen the family tie! What completes marriage and the family? The child, the object of their hopes. Who maintains the family? The child they possess. He is the aim and the end, the mediator—I had almost said the whole.

We cannot repeat it too often, for nothing is more true—woman is alone. She is alone if she has a husband; she is also alone even with a son. Once at school, she sees him only by favour, and often at long intervals. When he leaves school, other prisons await the youth, and other exiles.

A brilliant evening party is given: enter those well-lighted rooms; you see the women sitting in long rows, well-dressed, and entirely alone. Go, about four o'clock, to the Champs-Elysées, and there you will see again the same women, sad and spiritless, on their way to the Bois de Boulogne, each in her own carriage, and alone. These are in a calash, those at the far end of a shop; but all are equally alone.